The Rotary Balita no. 799 (June 21, 1956)

In this informal setting, mothers push carriages through an outdoor museum, children play on the shores of the lagoon and secretaries combine box lunches with art. Art and recreation are now boon companions in a new vacation trend-travel with a purpose. Time was when concert, museum, and theatre were forsaken-along with the grimy city-in favor of golf clubs and fishing tackle. Today music, poetry, and art are becoming as a vital part of the itinerary as bed and board. Throughout Europe, this year, a rash of summer art festivals is spreading to every hamlet and village. Not to be outdone, Boston has recently come up with a summer festival rivaling its European prototypes. The Boston Arts Festival, a free outdoor presentation of the arts, has for the past four years been drawing some 500,000 visitors annually to Boston's Public Garden. Here-in a setting of incomparable beauty right in the heart of the city-thousands of strolling visitors and guests see exhibitions of painting, sculpture, drawing, architecture and crafts, all set out in gay-colored pavilions under the spreading elms. Each evening, top-quality performances in the lively arts-music, dance, poetry, opera, and theater-are presented on the Festival lakeside stage to crowds numbering as high as 15,000 each performance. The Festival is unique in many ways. Events at the Festival have been drawing crowds which might equal the Red Sox games, Ice Capades, or Rodeo. And all this with no pandering to tastes, no lowering of standards to a carnival level. In the past, for instance, the Festival has been host to such leading artists as Martha Graham, Carl Sandburg, Gene Lockhart, Mildred Dunnock, Thornton Wilder, and Robert Frost. In this informal setting, mothers push their perambulators through an outdoor museum, children play on the shores of the lagoon, and secretaries combine box lunches with a taste of non-objective art. To be sure, the Initiated finds his way to the Festival just as he seeks out any cultural event of note. But he is far outnumbered by the Uninitiated, who samples his first gulp of art at the Festival-and loves it. This year, about three-quarters of a million people will attend the fifth annual event. They will see daily exhibitions of New England fine arts-about 250 works of painting, sculpture, and graphic arts, chosen by national jurors from an estimated 2,500 entries; 50 works by America's outstanding water-colorists; prize-winning examples of New England architecture; crafts exhibitions; and daily demonstrations, by New England master craftsmen, of weaving, silversmithing, pottery, jewelry making, and block printing. With the coming of evening, guests will foregather at the Festival outdoor stage by the Public Garden lake of Swanboat fame. From large grassy plots or from ringside seats-rented for 25 cents-they will see performances in the lively arts. The 1956 schedule calls for: four performances of "Abe Lincoln in Illinois," a memorial to the late Robert E. Sherwood; four performances of classic ballet with Maria Tallchief, Andre Eglevsky, and members of the corps de ballet, by courtesy of the New York City Ballet; a poetry evening with the 1956 Festival Poetry Award winner, Archibald MacLeish, who will read his own works and a new poem on the "occasion of the Festival." There will also be a Folk Dance evening, with international dancers performing in native costume; an opera production, and an evening of choral music. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Festival is that every event is entirely free to the public. Unlike its forebears in Europe-Edinburgh, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, and countless others-the Festival provides "quality without a price tag." Although the City of Boston provides part of the budget, the Festival is made possible largely through individual and business contributions. Many American cities are organizing Festivals, frankly modeled after the Hub's successful venture. Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Philadelphia-and more recently New York City-have sent delegations or inquiries to Festival officials. For a new leisure class which travels with a purpose, Boston's event is a growing tourist magnet. From here it is a short jaunt to New England's White or Green Mountains, Maine's craggy shore, or historic Cape Cod. If one remains in the Hub, there are peripheral events going on all the time-galleries, museums, theatres, and concert halls feature special Festival programs. A "museum without walls and theatre without a box office" is New England's newest contribution to the rapidly-growing "eye and ear circuit" of American travel.